Hello

This is driving me crazy. Been back spoke to witnesses, got into the house and found the amulet and secret door. Took amulet to guy in castle then went and saw Costilax about pendant, then sold it to him. So go back to guy in castle and he has no new speech options. I have now pickpocketed Costilax's key and checked his chest and got the journal so I know its him but I can't do a thing no matter what I do. Help!!!


Jason

Do you have a previous save from before you sold him the amulet? That is the easiest fix. Do NOT sell him the amulet or else the quest will bug out.

If you don't have a save, here is what I did when I had this bug.

I used a cheat code (player.modav) to set my pickpocket skill very high (if yours isn't already). Then I saved after going into his house and having him start the tour. As he turns away from you, pickpocket the amulet out. But since it's still a hard thing to pickpocket, you want the save to reload to in case he catches you.

Also make sure you talked to Viola, and you need the Butcher pamphlets for that. Get one from Hjerim as they are scattered about and in the chest. You can't talk to Viola unless you have one on you, and you must talk to Viola to progress the quest.

Hopefully no one minds, I have a different question related to bugs with this quest. Can anyone confirm that there is a bug related to some people not getting this quest to start at all? I've spent 10 levels (I'm level 20 now) and a month of in-game time waiting for Susanna to get murdered.. and nothing. I've advanced pretty far in the Stormcloak questline, if that has anything to do with it, and I've done numerous quests all over the map. I've spoken to anyone who will mention anything about the murders. After every quest, I fast travel back to Windhelm to see if the murder has happened, and nothing. Many others seem to get it on their second time in Windhelm after not doing much at all. Is it a bug? Am I missing something?

I got a similar problem. I found the real killer, Calixo in the creepy house but he was totally invulnerable. I punched his health down to 0 but he always got up, no quest update.. :/ This quest was totally broken, I had to load a savegame from the time before I started even the 1st stage of this quest! I Lost 10 levels, and now I have to do a lot of quests, adventures again!! I enjoy the game though, so that's not problem but I fear that I will encounter another serious bug like this and I'll loose a lot of gaming hours again :'( I wonder if Bethesda will ever fix things like that... They provided a 0 day patch but there are still bugs
Originally I used lockpicks to get into that house, and by doing so I skipped a quest stage, when you have to get the proper key from an old women. Most likely this ruined the quest line, so I got stuck bcs the killer remained an "essential" NPC.
My solution was to load the previously mentioned savegame, and start the quest again, from 0. I read the UESPwiki article about this quest and followed every single instructions step by step!!
So finally I was able to kill Calixo and to complete the quest.

Is there a topic about all known bugs / bugged or easily glitchy quests???

I am having exactly the same issue. I have tried reverting to an earlier save and it is exactly the same even if I follow the steps on usep.net - from the moment the court mage tells me to patrol the streets it almost instantly registers that as complete then tells me catch the killer and Calixo runs to the house where he proceeds to attack me while being immortal.
I'm on a ps3 so alas there is no console fix for me - just an extremely irritating bug. The only issue that I can think of is that Tova Shatter-Shield is dead, having comitted suicide after I killed her daughter in a dark brotherhood quest. If this is the underlying cause the it seems ludicrous and is yet another issue that needs patching.

I have the same problem with Calixto being invulnerable. But the last save I had from before starting the 1st stage of the quest was 20 levels earlier, and there was no way I was going to lose those levels and quests. So I ended up using the console to make the quest mark as complete and to also give myself the real amulet and get rid of the first one. Not perfect (Wuunferth is still in jail) but at least it's done...

Lots of people are having trouble getting the quest to start, including me. If it's not a bug, then somebody needs to find out what the missing requirement is.

I too have had problems with Blood on the Ice. It says to go and "Investigate the Murder Scene" but when I go to the murder scene where the arrow is pointing, nothing happens.

Does anyone know how to get past that?

Follow the blood trail to Hjerim.

This quest is easy to do, but absolute murder to activate.

When I first played through, I didn't get it to work - then I discovered that you must be under 250 in-game days for the quest to trigger and that you have to leave and re-enter Windhelm 4 times ( i.E traveling to Riverwood, then to the Windhelm stables and enter Windhelm, repeat ) This triggered the quest for me on my second playthrough.

I've had problems with that broken ass quest as the quest wont even start and the npc that should die is still in the tavern after waiting in the town 50 days in game leaving and returning over and over again she wont die!